Federal Agencies Embracing Use Of Open Source Software Code

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Federal agencies that previously relied on expensive, built-to-order software are now following a growing trend to embrace open source code.

"Every company in the top 100 government providers uses open source in their products: all of them," said Scott Montgomery, McAfee [MFE] chief technology officer for the public sector.

Open source code means that the human-readable code is made publicly available and can be modified and reviewed. This gives the software community opportunities to find vulnerabilities and improve the code. Open source code allows any developer to use it as a foundation for a program or application. While this creates efficiency and cuts cost, it also presents hackers with a chance to search for potential exploits in widely used open source codes.